


Just A Dream

by woodelf



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodelf/pseuds/woodelf
Summary: Total season 6 fix-it. Because why not?
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Just A Dream

Belle jolted upright in bed, her heart racing wildly. She turned the bedside lamp on, and looked at Rumpel, lying beside her. He stirred at her movement and opened his eyes. 

“Is everything all right?”

“Nightmare,” she said succinctly, taking in the sight of his shaggy hair in relief. It had just been a dream, a really bad dream. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” He sat up and held out an arm. 

Belle gladly scooted over, leaning back against his chest and feeling his chin come to rest atop her head as his arms enfolded her in warmth and safety.

“Yeah, I think I need to.” She took a deep breath. “It started in the Underworld, after you told me that I was pregnant. I ran off to _Zelena,_ for some reason, and she gave me the idea that Hades would speed up my pregnancy like Emma had done to her, and I panicked and put myself under a sleeping curse, without even asking you if it was a good idea.” She grimaced. “Yeah, doesn’t make sense, I know.”

“I take it it didn’t turn out well?” He asked in sympathy, rubbing her arms soothingly. 

Belle snorted. “Of course not. I thought my father would kiss me awake when we got home, but he refused outright. Said he didn’t care if I stayed asleep forever. So you tried to do it, but it didn’t work until Mr Hyde told you that you had to go to the temple of Morpheus and enter my dream world to do it. And it did start to work there, but then…Morpheus stopped it? It’s hard to remember the details, but then he said he could do it, because he was my son and it worked. But wouldn’t he have have been able to wake me in any case, since he’s the god of dreams?” She shook her head. “Anyway, that was apparently enough to convince my dream self that he was our son – from the future, I guess? But he was also a god that’s been around for millenia? I’m pretty sure that’s not possible, unless you’re hiding your deity from me.”

Rumpel snorted behind her back, and Belle grinned, and tried to remember what came next. “Oh, but he also intimated that you were going to ruin our family somehow, and that’s when things got really weird. _I_ got really weird. I left you and went to live on _Hook’s ship_. With Hyde on the loose. And you not unnaturally were worried about me and tried to protect me with a spell that backfired and…” 

The dream was getting fuzzier by the minute. “I was just acting all horrible to you, and keeping you from our baby, and you were playing some sort of game with the Evil Queen…The shears of destiny came into it; I was afraid that you were going to use them on our son when he was born. I think I’m forgetting some things already, but the upshot was that she speeded up my pregnancy but I thought it was you so after I had the baby I gave him to the Blue Fairy to take away so you wouldn’t ever find him. I wouldn’t even tell you what I’d named him when you showed up, so you couldn’t use that to find him.” She shivered, unable to believe the malevolence towards her husband that her dream self had felt. “I’m sorry, Rumpel, I would never do that to you; you know that. None of it made any sense.”

“Of course I know it, sweetheart. And dreams very often don’t make sense. It just means that you’re nervous about having a baby in this town, which anyone would be considering what’s happened to us in the past. And it shows that you would do anything to protect our child, which I don’t doubt for a moment.” He kissed her temple. “What did you name the baby, by the way?”

“Oh. Well, one of the names that I’ve already thought about is Gideon, from _My Handsome Hero._ I’m not sure how I feel about it now, though. I don’t want to do anything that’ll make that dream come true.” She shifted and slid down, Rumpel going with her, and she pillowed her head upon his chest as he pulled the covers back up over both of them. 

“Well, we’ve still got almost nine months to decide. We could always have it for a middle name if we don’t use it for a first one?” he suggested. 

“That’s not a bad idea. Although actually – we don’t even know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl yet. That was all from my dream.”

“We’ll just have to think of names for both, until we know.” He splayed his hand protectively over her belly. “What about Jonathan for a boy?” After a lifetime of having the oddest name anyone had ever heard of, he was rather inclined to go for simplicity. 

“Jonathan’s nice.” The warmth of his hand was soothing, and Belle felt herself relaxing as the nightmare dissipated into nothingness. She yawned. “What about a girl? What about Tabitha?”

“I would have to call her Tabby Cat, as a nickname,” decided Rumpelstiltskin solemnly. 

“That’s rather cute; I like it. Or…Jessica, or Jillian, or Jeremy.” She felt herself getting drowsy again. 

“They’re all good names. We’ll start a list tomorrow.”

“What about…Jasper?” she asked suspiciously. 

Rumpelstiltskin hesitated a moment. “No.”

“Oh good, I thought you were going to agree with everything I suggested. Not that Jasper’s horrible or anything, but it sort of sounds like a cartoon villain. You never got a say in naming Bae, I want to make sure the name we pick out is one that you like as well.”

Rumpelstiltskin bent his head and kissed her forehead, a deep surge of love and appreciation washing through him. “That means a lot to me. Although Baelfire was a perfect name; he brought more warmth and light into my life than I’d ever known before.”

“We’ll tell our baby all about their big brother,” Belle said softly, her eyes drifting closed at last. “They say that no one is ever truly dead as long as they’re remembered.”

“Then Bae will live forever,” said Rumpelstiltskin firmly, and thought of something. Tomorrow he would get a dream-catcher to hang over their bed. 

* * *

The sonogram of their son lying on her nightstand, Belle dreamed. A little boy smiled up at her as he proudly offered a crayoned drawing of three stick people in front of a salmon-coloured house. All three figures were smiling, the mommy and the daddy and the little boy holding their hands in between them. In the corner of the paper a name had been scrawled _. Gideon._

* * *

A soft knocking sounded on the door of their hospital room. Rumpelstiltskin got up off the side of the bed where he’d been sitting and went to open it, smiling as he saw Henry’s expectant face.

“Hey. Come on in and meet your new uncle.”

Henry grinned. “I seem to specialise in baby uncles. Thanks for inviting me.” He looked towards the bed, where Belle was comfortably attired in one of her own nightgowns, holding a small swaddled bundle. “How are you?”

“I’m good.” She beamed at him, turning the baby so that Henry could see him. “I had a nap and now we’re up to seeing visitors. Right?” She glanced down lovingly at her son and moved the tiny hand in a wave. “See, he’s waving. Want to hold him?”

“Sure.” Henry put his backpack down and sat in the chair pulled up next to the bed. “Have you named him yet?” He’d gotten the news when he’d checked his phone for messages at lunch; the second half of the school day had seemed interminable. 

“We have.” Rumpelstiltskin took the baby from Belle with a practiced hand and lowered him into Henry’s waiting arms. “Mind the head –”

“You have to support it; I know.” Henry took the baby carefully, having learned the routine with Neal. “Hey there, I’m Henry,” he informed his nephew, and a small hand reached out and tried to grab his nose. He laughed and looked up expectantly. 

“Henry, meet Gideon.” Rumpelstiltskin laid one hand gently on his son’s head. “Gideon Emrys Gold.”

**Author's Note:**

> After Belle told Rumpel her dream and expressed her wish to use Gideon after all, Rumpel chose the name Emrys. It means “immortal”. 


End file.
